Ok, I've read the FAQ. I know you're supposed to lurk awhile before
posting as a newbie on newsgroups, but I haven't got the patience
for that so I'll take my chances, and besides I think this forum is
interesting (the rational parts at any rate).
I'm actually from rec.motorcycles. I don't know what it is about
motorcycles that attracts all kinds of off-topic cross-posting kooks
such as racists, anti-Semites, Obama-bashers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists
and I don't know what-all, including creationists.
The last category is how I learned about talk.origins.
Some characters-with-many-nyms, one of whom sometimes calls himself
"Ed Conrad" (or maybe they're all one person, who knows), anyway they
kept showing up to insist that human remains have been found in coal
deposits. Here's an example (which I'm sure isn't news to anyone here):
Nobel Foundation wrote:
> These fossils prove, beyond even the least reasonable doubt, that man
> had existed on earth at least 280 million years ago while coal was
> being formed
280 million years BCE is indeed in the earlier (ie, coal-forming)
stages of the Permian Period. ("Throw another trilobite on the barbie,
there's a good lad!")
For some strange reason it seems terribly important to these people
to prove that modern-style humans were around to walk the Earth
in Carboniferous and Permian times when dinosaurs hadn't even
been invented yet.
Well, at first I was skeptical but strangely enough I have discovered
convincing proof to verify this! The illustration "Appalachian orogeny"
about halfway down on this site... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea
...clearly shows a human hand emerging to the right from behind a
volcano in the middle picture, labeled "C. Late Mississippian".
Here's a closer view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Appalachian_orogeny.jpg
This confirms the human presence firmly in the mid-Carboniferous!
But that's not all. The following story has been handed down in my
family for many generations; ever since we were the first Paleozoic
settlers to homestead on the Continent Formerly Known as Pangaea:
The sun was sinking over the western rim of Gondwanaland on the very
last day of the Devonian Period, the evening of Dec 31, 360,000,001 BCE.
Mr. and Mrs. Zog were tucking their children into bed.
"Now sleep tight, we've all got a big day tomorrow," said Mr. Zog.
"What's it going to be, Daddy," asked little Damselfly.
"Well, staring tomorrow morning all that peat out there will turn
into coal."
"What's 'coal', Daddy?"
"It's like rock, except it rubs off on your fingers and makes them
grungy. And you gotta wash after you play with it. But the good thing
is we can burn it to keep our cave warm at night."
"Oh, that'll be nice." The children drifted off into sleep, trying
to imagine playing with coal.
They were awoken at dawn the next morning by a tremendous crash that
shook the cave and made stalactites drop like spears and shatter
(luckily no one was hurt). The youngest, little Spider Mite started
crying with fright, and was comforted by Mrs. Zog while her husband
took a peek outside.
"What was that, Daddy?"
"Oh, it looks like we just collided with the Continent of Laurussia."
All the children rushed outside to see. "What are those huge... _things_
over there?" asked young Stag Beetle (by some coincidence all their
children were named after invertebrates).
"Well, Stag, those are the Allegheny Mountains. You don't suppose
continents collide without throwing up a few crumples, do you?"
"Oh..." said Stag (for once) somewhat subdued.
"Look what *I* found, Daddy!" announced Ladybug.
"Ladybug Ladybug, fly away home..." the others began to tease,
until Mrs. Z shut them up with a few politically incorrect
but well targeted (and effective) swats.
Ladybug was holding a black object that made her hands grungy.
"It's coal. You've just found the first lump of coal."
"Can I keep it, Daddy? Can I please, can I?"
"Of course you can keep it."
"I want one too -- me too!" cried the other children, as they rushed off
into what (in a few 100 million years) would be Scranton, Pennsylvania.
And their descendants were still there when the mastodons arrived, and
they were there to greet the "First Nations" People when they showed up,
although by that time they'd moved out into the suburbs (of Carbondale,
naturally) and were still there to deal with William Penn. Now they live
in a seedy, run-down area in downtown Philly. Drop around some time;
they like visitors -- and if you act interested, they might even
show you Ladybug's first lump of coal.
Sean Quinlan
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